Diversity is critical in tech, as it enables companies to create better and safer products that take everyone into consideration, not just one section of society. A report from McKinsey found that diverse companies perform better, hire better talent, have more engaged employees and retain workers better than companies that do not focus on diversity and inclusion. Despite this, women remain widely underrepresented in IT roles.
Statistics from the following seven facets of IT work, ranging from higher education to workplace environment, paint a clear picture of the challenges women face in finding equal footing in a career in IT.
The employment gap
Women make up 47 percent of all employed adults in the U.S., but as of 2015, they hold only 25 percent of computing roles, according to data from the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). Of the 25 percent of women working in tech, Asian women make up just 5 percent of that number, while black and Hispanic women accounted for 3 percent and 1 percent, respectively. All this despite the fact that the growth of STEM jobs has outpaced the growth of overall employment in the country, growing 79 percent since 1990 while overall employment has grown 34 percent, according to data from Pew Research Center. Despite national conversations about the lack of diversity in tech, women are disproportionally missing out on this boom.
Read More from This Article: Women in tech statistics: The hard truths of an uphill battle
Source: News